its been a while!

Luke mentioned the other day that someone was reading my blog and had commented on the fact i havent ever mentioned him. This was in no way a conscious, deliberate thing. Luke is my wonderful rock, always supportive and there for the boys and i, and although he isnt completely on side with the whole home ed thing, he loves me and trusts me enough to let me try it and see how it goes, for which i am soooo grateful for. We dont always see eye to eye on parenting matters, but we get through any problems we have because we love each other very much. 

First week and a half of home ed!

I have been so busy the last week or so that i just havent found time to post. Planning on spending the rest of the week close to home for a bit of needed downtime. We are slowly getting used to our new daily rhythm, and we are all enjoying it. Weve been spending a lot of time seeing people, and visiting places the last weekand im posting some pics below.

Also, we went to our first home ed group meet up on tuesday at a lovely park in Taunton. It was very daunting but everyone was lovely and it was refreshing to talk to like minded people for a change, instead of feeling like your talking a different language to other parents! Cant wait to meet up again, as this is hopefully going to become a regular group (its just started up).

We have been doing a lot of clearing out at home, getting rid of things we dont use (taking them to the charity shop or selling on ebay) and hayden has chosen a lot of old toys to sell. We now have a no plastic policy for toys in our house as i am so fed up of the crap that hayden gets for birthday's and xmas. The money he got selling his old toys has gone on some new lovely, well made, imaginative wooden toys which he already loves. Hope to eventually be plastic toy free!

Our first proper home ed day!

Im sitting here at the end of a wonderful busy day feeling so happy knowing that every day could be like this. I have spent a week reading various literature on unschooling, home ed and waldorf principles and have decided the 'way' i want to home ed Hayden. We are adopting a new rhythm into our days as follows;

Breakfast, stories and dressed

Eurythmy and finger games and songs (of haydens choosing)

free play 

art, craft or baking (of haydens choosing)

lunch

outing (park, woods, group, museum etc of hayds choosing)

housework (hayden helping if he wants, usually yes, if nothe watches a dvd or plays educational games on pc on his fave websites)

dinner 

wind down, bath, stories and bed

this is not rigid of course, it very flexible and is just a loose rhythm. i find it makes the day run smoother, and hayden seems to thrive better with it and we all get more out of it. It so wonderful to observe and marvel at how much children learn from everyday life activities, they seem to absorb so much more when things are learnt through 'doing'.

I was thinking about the national curriculum and what is expected of our children to learn at school at this age, and i really wonder why people turn their nose up at home ed and assume it to be inferior to formal schooling. I believe my child will learn such a wider breadth being at home with me than he would at a school and more inportantly he will learn how to think for himself (outside the box as well as in), know how to care for himself and others and appreciate nature. 

Our day today has included;

stories, pretend and real picnics, train tracks, building bridges with treeblocks and loading up diggers with said treeblocks to see which could hold more weight, hanging out washing, putting away washing, dusting, junk modelling rockets, nature detective games on pc (trees memory and badger wood) water play in sink, walk to baby clinic to have artie weighed, listening to music. 

If this was school, he would have studied 

history (trees memory pc game)

environmental issues (badger wood)

problem solving (building)

science and maths (hang washing out, counting pegs and experimenting with weight)

art (junk modelling)

Who needs school?

Not us,  thats for sure :)

And so our journey begins!

Welcome to my blog. I have been contemplating starting one for a while now, as i so much enjoy reading the blogs of other like-minded parents that i admire. But i have always felt that i am awful at putting down how i feel, it all gets jumbled inside me and bursts out in an incoherent mess. But what better way to work on it eh. 

I have recently decided, after so much painful deliberation, to give home education a go. It has been such a hard decision knowing what to do for the best for Hayden, but i really feel that it is right for him at this point in time. I feel a mixture of intrepidation, excitement, fear of the unknown. I am proud of myself for taking that giant step that i could so easily have avoided. 

I do not know any other parents who do things in any way similar to me. I am seen as a weirdo, an alien, and a hippy among my friends and family. I get told i will spoil my youngest Artie because we co-sleep and i only use a sling and not a pushchair, and because i actually like to hold my child, enjoy him and involve him in the hustle and bustle of my life. He is not an inconvenience, nor is he a naughty little dog i need to tame and control. People dont understand why i want to breastfeed him until he is a toddler, and why i use cloth nappies and natural toys and why i let him lead the way in the life with eating and sleeping. To me these things are logical, natural and the right thing to do, and its so frustrating that people in my life dont see that.

Home education is another example, every time i mention it to people they ridicule it and just cant understand why i would possible want to do it. But i feel it is right, and he is my child so ha!

Below are some pictures of my beautiful family.